Quote:
Originally Posted by Table 5
The Germans just can't seem to get out of their own way these days. ID Buzz being electric instead of hybrid, trying to make electric Caymans/Boxsters happen, MB's looking like melting bars of soap with a cheeseball middle-eastern nightclub inside, VW stripping their cars of all personality (and buttons), BMW's pushing the envelope on ugliness, Audi being lost in the weeds etc.
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I think the very sudden pivot from all automakers to “EV or Bust” 4 years ago has messed all sorts of long time model and corporate planning and development. Now that EV has fallen flat and automakers (Europe and American) now have to slowly revert back to the previous way of developing models. But it’s now left product gaps and continuity gaps in design, development, themes for EV, Hybrid and ICE vehicles and how they all fit within each automakers hierarchy and product portfolio.
Some of the out of the box design and work that was allowed to be done by those developing EVs as a blank slate for design was good and is trying to get awkwardly integrated into ICE vehicles now with the pendulum swinging back that way. Some of it was bad, but because design teams are design teams, they plow forward with those out of the box ideas because there’s no one left doing it the previous way, as to the things you list.
In another similar vein, if GM sold the Hummer brand as ICE or Hybrid they would sell a lot more of those vehicles. That said, they would then compete directly with other GM ICE vehicles if they were to change over and they would annoy those Chevy and GMC dealers.
Cadillac was going to go all EV and that’s not the case anymore, but the product plans for the current ICE vehicles were basically abandoned a few years ago when they made that proclamation…but now they have to revive them years later after the stalled development curve and make some odd design and content decisions in trying to update those ICE vehicles now, and for the next generation, and how those ICE vehicles lineup with the EV ones (ie Escalade vs Escalade IQ).
